“Transcendent Man” A Look Back Since The Debut

One of the most controversial documentaries of our time has been available for digital download for several months now, yet many in the mainstream are still unacquainted with the ideas, concepts, opportunities and challenges presented by the coming Technological Singularity. Perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising, many of us live in the mundane, harsh reality of the now. Day to day life, war, debt, unemployment, death and taxes are difficult enough to grapple with without taking time out to contemplate the vast implications of a Technological Singularity predicted to emerge sometime between 2029 to 2050. Such a thing to the average man or woman can seem so distant, it may as well be ten thousand years away. Despite the fact that many of the emergent technologies related to the Singularity hold the prospect to solve or (at the very least) reduce the severity of many of the major world problems we face; public interest in one of the most transformative ideas of our time remains lackluster. Perhaps the answer is simple, maybe most people just don’t care about the accelerating technological change we are experiencing. Perhaps they reside in a part of the world where technology is not considered as great a priority in life as food availability, clean water or personal safety. Perhaps the answer is that plain old fear or religious concerns cause most to turn the page, change the channel or simply not pay attention to such things. When and if the Singularity is achieved it seems there will come a time when history will be divided into two eras; we can think of them as the B.T.S. and A.T.S. eras. We currently live in the B.T.S era, Before The Singularity. We have the internet, rudimentary genetic engineering, basic nanotechnology, early AI and robotics. The generations of human beings and machine intelligences to come after the current generation could reside in what may one day be referred to as the A.T.S era or After The Singularity. We can’t know with certainty how those living in the future will remember this time period, but when the history is written, Transcendent Man will stand large as a film that presented the material in an informed and elegant manner.